I resume my gallery rounds

I finally got out to some galleries in "SoWa" (that's "South of Washington St.," you great unwashed you), and found some beautiful new work that nobody's buying because of the economy. Which is a pity. At left is an image from a show called "Renaissance," by Bill Armstrong, currently occupying half of the Kayafas Gallery at 450 Harrison Ave. Armstrong has begun with figure drawings from the Renaissance, then cut them out into stencils, then photographed them with the focus set at infinity, or something like that - there's a whole metaphoric armature here, but does it matter? Simultaneously spiritualized yet sensualized, these big, luminous images are mysteriously gorgeous. The rest of the gallery is given over to BU's Daniel Ranalli, who has made some witty pastiches of local half-erased chalkboards, as well as a series of haunting photograms.